Key players are off form, there is unease behind the scenes and some fear the manager’s influence is waning as Liverpool come to town
Something is wrong behind the scenes at St James’ Park this season and, albeit tacitly, Eddie Howe has admitted it.
“I’m constantly analysing the team to see if there are things we can tweak or change,” he said. “If anyone is thinking I’m sat there saying we are just going to do the same thing, week in week out, nothing could be further from the truth. But you have to be very careful that the changes benefit you and don’t hurt you even more. I’m living in that world. We’ve got to stick to the things that work and just try to tweak the things that aren’t.
“A new dynamic and a new team always has to form every season. Sometimes, the same squad can produce a staleness and a negative product. So I think we’re aware of that. But it’s about what we’re able to do rather than ‘I want’. ‘I want’ is clear. We haven’t had a huge turnover of players and that’s a slight concern.”
The suspicion is that the sometimes overly intense Howe, without Trippier as his first lieutenant in the dressing room, is struggling to win quite as many hearts and minds as sometimes in the past. At a time when Howe’s relationship with his sporting director, Paul Mitchell, clearly remains uneasy this is not ideal.
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